Our climate change and sustainable futures research
Our academic focus ranges across three main areas:
- predicting climate change and its effects on ecosystems and human and animal health;
- developing the technology for mitigating its effects;
- the study of public attitudes and government policy.
Although work is organised as part of the University’s Science Strategy, the input from the social sciences and humanities is crucial. This is particularly true in understanding people’s relationship with the environment and how this might be changed.
Motivating questions
Our researchers are answering a number of key questions around the climate change debate.
- How uncertain are climate predictions?
- How should decisions be made given this uncertainty?
- How will the land carbon sink respond to climate change?
- Does Geoengineering make sense?
- How do tropical rainforests influence climate?
- How do climates of the very distant past help us?
- What is the role of non-greenhouse-gas forcings?
- How can we improve predictions?
- What determines attitudes to energy technologies?
- How will human health be affected by climate change?
- How are attitudes to the environment influenced by social identity?
- How will complex ecological systems respond to climate change?
- How will the built environment have to change to cope with climate change?
- What are the best economic mechanisms to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol?
- How can policy help society deal with climate change?
- How can we develop renewable energy technology?
Projects
You can find out more about individual research projects within the theme, including collaborations with the Met Office, and our Big Dilemmas and Beyond Nimbyism projects, by visiting our Projects page.
